“Women—and boys,” he answered. “And what d’you call yourself?”
“Well, I’m a man, I suppose,” I replied. “I’m earning my own living, anyway.”
“So did I—afore I was ten years old, my bold hero!” said the landlord.
He talked to me, while I ate my bread and cheese, and presently advised me to take a cab and drive home; but this I scorned to do, being perfectly fit again. I said I hoped to see him once more some day and he only took sixpence for all my refreshment. He was a good man and I felt jolly obliged to him—especially when he told me that my faint was not a disgrace in itself, but more in the nature of a misfortune.
I walked home and said nothing about this unfortunate event; but merely told Aunt Augusta that I had not been able to get into the Lyceum, which was the strict truth and no more. For if I had revealed to her about fainting she would have fussed me to death and very likely made me go to Harley Street in grim earnest and not merely as a spectator of that famous spot.
Two nights later I went to the Lyceum again and waited three hours, and being laden in every pocket with sausage rolls, mince pies, and fat, sustaining pieces of chocolate, simply laughed at the waiting. However, it was a lesson in its way; and the lesson was never to be hungry in London. It is the worst place in the world to be hungry in—owing to the great strain on the nerves, no doubt. And hunger weakens the strength in a very marked way and makes you liable to be run over, or anything. Besides that, to be hungry is not only very uncomfortable in itself; but it makes you a great nuisance to other people; and the hungry person ought not to go into crowds for fear of the consequences. A time was coming when I was going to see hundreds of hungry persons all assembled in one place together; but that remarkable and fearful sight did not happen until many months later.
The immediate result of the fainting was a change of diet, and you will be glad to know I shall never mention the bun and the glass of milk again; because it went out of my career from that day forward.
I had no secrets from Mr. Blades, who was now my greatest and most trusted friend in London. Therefore I told him about the catastrophe, making him first swear silence; and he explained it all and let me go out to lunch with him that very day, to show me what a good and nourishing lunch ought to be.
“It is silly to say you can’t pay for it,” declared Mr. Blades, “because you must. And it is far better to pay for a chop or steak or even a sausage and mashed and half of bitter ale, than to find yourself in the doctor’s hands.”
He was full of these wise and shrewd sayings; so I went to an eating-house with him and never laughed so much before, owing to the screamingly funny way in which a waiter shouted things down a tube. It was not so much the things in themselves as the way he shortened the names of them, to save his precious time. Men came in and gave their orders, and then this ridiculous but exceedingly clever waiter shouted his version of the orders down a pipe which led to the kitchen of the restaurant, where the dishes were being prepared.